![]() ![]() The ScholastIcum is an institute for the study of Scholastic Theology and Philosophy, headquartered at Rome, dedicated to the promotion of the greater appreciation and understanding of Medieval Theology and Philosophy as it was taught at the University of Paris in the mid 13th century. Note that the edition is Polyglot, but the canonical version is the English. This is the First Edition of our Annuario Academico for 2016-17, which we are sharing on to solicit interest from prospective students to study with us. Then it will revisit some of the same texts to address the more difficult question of distinction ex parte rei. After giving a brief introduction to Grosseteste's aspectus/affectus distinction, this paper will examine key passages from his Letter 1, his De Libero Arbitrio, and his Hexaëmeron to show that Grosseteste tacitly but knowingly rejected the substance/accident composition of the soul and its powers. Are the soul's powers identical with the simple substance of the soul, or are they accidents of it? When it is granted that the powers are identical with the substance of the soul, for Robert Grosseteste, the second question is whether any distinction ex parte rei may still be applicable to the soul and its powers in general, and to aspectus and affectus in particular. The first question is that of substance/accident composition. This paper proposes to investigate two important questions pertaining to Grosseteste's metaphysics of the soul. ![]() The answer to this question is inextricable from the broader question of the relationship of the soul to its powers. One major question that must be answered is how Grosseteste conceived of aspectus and affectus on the level of being. Although Grosseteste scholars have long recognized the importance of his aspectus/affectus distinction, it has until now received little sustained attention. By distinguishing the aspectus from the affectus and then describing their relationship, Grosseteste made some of his most profound observations about the soul. Aspectus principally denotes reason, and affectus refers to the will and emotions. " desire " or " affection ") to name the cognitive and appetitive powers of the rational soul. Throughout at least four decades of his scholarly career, Grosseteste frequently used the terms aspectus (lit. Robert Grosseteste (c.1168/1170-1253) is an important figure in the history of science, philosophy, and theology. This is the full version of a paper I presented at the 2017 Patristic, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies Conference at Villanova University. While in no way replacing earlier studies by James McEvoy (1982, 2000) and James Ginther (2004), this book advances the study of Robert Grosseteste in several areas, including his doctrine of the soul and his theory of illumination. Because Grosseteste’s aspectus/affectus distinction unites multiple areas of his thought, this work serves a secondary purpose as the most recent introduction to his theology and philosophy. These doctrines take their point of departure from the Augustinian/Cistercian tradition of the twelfth century and form a foundation for several Franciscans of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Not only are the doctrines accompanying aspectus and affectus fundamental to his psychology, but they also have important connections to his metaphysics, his soteriology, his mystical theology, and his epistemology. This work presents the first full historical and systematic analysis of Grosseteste’s aspectus/affectus distinction and finds that this distinction is an important key to understanding a web of interrelated themes in Grosseteste’s thought. While a book-length study on this topic has long been desirable, it has not been attempted until now. This division of the rational soul’s powers into the cognitive and appetitive appears frequently in the English polymath’s works across genres and across at least four decades of his scholarly career. Generations of scholars have observed that the aspectus/affectus distinction was a signature feature in the thought of Robert Grosseteste (c.1168-1253). ![]()
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